Speech of the Secretary-General of SCMCHA during the consultative meeting with humanitarian partners.

The speech of Secretary-General of SCMCHA during the consultative meeting with humanitarian partners.

“In the name of Alleh, the most gracious, the most merciful”

Brothers / representatives of official government agencies.

Mr. William David Gressly – Coordinator of the United Nations Office for Humanitarian Affairs in Yemen.

Gentlemen and ladies / directors of the offices of international non-governmental organizations in Yemen.

Gentlemen and ladies / directors of local organizations and institutions

All attendance :

We welcome you all to this joint meeting, which aims to review:

• The importance of participatory planning for needs and prioritizing them among humanitarian partners at the level of the main sectors, according to which project proposals are submitted to donors.
• The efforts of SCMCHA in developing mechanisms for registering humanitarian partners and dealing with projects submitted by them and passing them by SCMCHA in cooperation and coordination with the relevant beneficiary agencies, ministries through electronic system.
• Previous meetings held between technicians in SCMCHA and OCHA and representatives of international organizations regarding the operational expenses of projects.
• OCHA will also present the Humanitarian Program Cycle (HPC).

Any other topics raised

ladies and gentlemen.

Everyone is aware of the sensitivity phase that our country is going through under the current conditions and we are living in the seventh year of aggression, and despite all the efforts made by government institutions in cooperation and coordination with many humanitarian partners, whether donors, United Nations agencies, international organizations and local organizations, but we are still needs in all sectors at the level of Yemeni governorates where many of those needs are considered a priority,so this is an indication of the importance of making greater efforts in participatory planning for needs and interventions between humanitarian partners with SCMCHA and the relevant ministries in all sectors. The failure of donors to fulfill their commitments towards the humanitarian response in Yemen represents a greater motivation for all of us as partners for humanitarian action in Yemen to take more care in participatory planning to identify priority sectors and thus prioritize interventions and projects that are commensurate with the funds actually fulfilled by donors.

At the same time, we stress the importance of OCHA role in Yemen to following the donors to fullfile their commitments to cover all humanitrian needs .
We aslo urge UN through all its agencies in Yemen, to make more efforts to advocate for basic humanitarian issues, to open land, sea and air corridors, ports, pay the salaries of state employees, and focus on sustainable projects as a priority because of this direct and sustainable results in alleviating the crisis for the Yemeni citizen.
we confirm that as much as we are keen on the importance and necessity of implementing emergency interventions in areas that need emergency interventions according to field variables, as happened in Hodeidah recently, but emergency interventions should be accompanied by joint planning to implement development projects and livelihood projects that will impact on the citizen on a permanent basis, in the same time, care should be taken to transfer the largest part of the funds to implement development projects of a sustainable nature in a larger scale represented in the governorates that have witnessed stability for years where they are the largest geographically and in population, and emergency interventions are no longer which are of importance or priority as much as development projects and projects that enhance livelihoods.

ladies and gentlemen

Everyone knows the efforts made by SCMCHA during the past months in order to develop a mechanism for dealing with humanitarian partners through the design of an electronic system that is easy for everyone, the mechanism of dealing with the Supreme Council, starting with registration and passing through the submission, analysis, discussion and approval the projects and the issuance of movement permits.
The technical brothers will review an overview of this system later in this meeting.
we confirm that we will continue to develop the work mechanism in a manner that ensures saving time and effort for all humanitarian partners as well as achieving what we all aspire to in this aspect.

Also, meetings between technicians from SCMCHA, OCHA and the representative team of international organizations are still ongoing to discuss the criteria and mechanism for passing sub-agreements, stressing the importance of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Yemen to make it clear to donors that allocating percentages to the main offices within the framework of the budget of projects submitted as grants to Yemen affects the process the humanitarian response leads to raising the percentage of operational expenditures and thus delaying the discussion and signing of those agreements in SCMCHA, and the deduction of percentages from the budgets of the main offices is inconsistent with the funds required to implement the humanitarian response in Yemen and the gap in the funds allocated by the non-fulfillment of many donors’ commitments from Another aspect.
It is not logical to adopt such percentages and amounts as humanitarian aid to Yemen at a time when these sums did not actually reach Yemeni society and did not enter Yemen at all.

We should all prevail over the interest of the citizen who benefits from these projects and interventions.
The partners should be keen to reduce operating expenses as much as possible and raise the proportion of direct expenses that actually reach the beneficiaries in a manner that ensures access to the largest possible number of affected people and thus achieve the optimal response to the largest number and the lowest operating cost.